I'm just starting out with Hacking for Dummies and it's given me a great idea to set up a virtual pc and attempt to break into it.Well, I've set up the virtual pc and I've managed to get a telnet connection to it on port 135, but now I'm stuck. What do I do now? I'd like to try and browse the filesystem remotely, but I don't know how.I'm using Windows Vista (you may all cringe now) as the host OS and XP as the guest OS. I would've used Fedora Core or Ubuntu linux as the guest, but I think my discs are wrecked.

If anyone can post a list of telnet commands for browsing a filesystem or help me in anyway, I'd really appreciate it. After searching on google, all I keep getting is the standard list of telnet commands that appear when I type in ?

I have not practice much with telneting, but just to discover what information the webserver would spit out, but check this link --------->http://cracksandhacks.wordpress.com/2007/10/02/telnet-hacking/

This will walk you through the tools that you will want to start with. via telnet, it is difficult to interact with port 135. There are tools that will help you, but you probably want to know more about the status of the host before going further. Look at ports open, vulnerabilities present, etc before heading in to try and get a shell.

Also as a literary side note, I didn't feel like Hacking for Dummies really did a great job with explaining the basics. If I were you, and if I happened to be in the market for a good pentesting book, I would look into 'Penetration Testing and Network Defense'-Whitaker and Newman. It's basic enough that beginners can understand and technical enough that you can understand what's being said and actually learn something.

OK, I should've done more research. I was expecting telnet to give me access to the vpc's filesystem...

I've tried looking for software that I can use to access the vpc's filesystem, but I haven't found anything.

I found some tutorials on doing all sorts of things crackers would do, but nothing on remotely accessing a protected filesystem.Does anyone know about a tutorial on doing this or is it ridiculous to assume that such a tutorial exists?

I would also recommend you to search through this and similar websites as there are many newcomers with same or similar questions.

Just start with a few basics like networking, programming etc. and improve yourself continously. The discs mentioned by Jhaddix, the De-ICE ones, are really great for getting some experience with the whole process of penetration testing and tools which can be involved.

Another thing you may try out if interested in Linux may be DVL - Damn Vulnerable Linux. This is a linux distro which was designed to offer vulnerable services to allow different attacks.

VMWare is one of the best programs you can use in my opinion and you should definetily consider to upgrading your RAM in order to get it running smoothly. Later on the chance is high that you will use this software on a regulary basis for various tasks.

In this and other threads already a lot of books where recommended to you, so just pick the ones which looks interesting to you and start.

If you have any specific questions please feel free to ask but you have to do the work by yourself.

I sort of went down the same path as you (hacking VM's etc..) when I first got a computer and abut the same time I bought "Pentesters Open Source Toolkit". It was one of the best books I have read and I still refer back to it all the time.